Vodafone's network knackered by thieves

Millions of Vodafone customers were disconnected this morning after an overnight break-in. Calls, text and data are intermittent west of London with a fix in progress.

The failures seem only to be affecting areas just west of London, in the so-called Silicon Corridor. Wales seems fine and the rest of the country is OK, but reports of intermittent failures are coming in from Swindon, Reading, Oxford and surrounding areas, with the fault making incoming and outgoing calls all but impossible.

Thieves apparently broke in to Vodafone's data centre, which resulted in kit getting damaged. Putting things back together is taking a while, but Vodafone tells us the fix is in process, and that no customer data was compromised.

We'll pass on more details when we have them, but in the meantime, if you can't get hold of a colleague this morning they might genuinely be having network problems, rather than the more usual Monday morning difficulties. ®